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User blog:Brady26/Children of Ash
“Are you prepared friend?” asked Mend-Nets, bending his body forward so he could peer through the hole in the small structure of snow. Inside the single room structure a large man sat crossed legged atop a pile of old furs, his eyes closed in silent meditation, he did not reply to the smaller man who remained half in, half out of the room’s threshold. The sitting figure grunted in answer after a few moments, he wanted to say that he do not see himself ever being prepared. Orcaheart unfolded his legs and crawled out of the structure of snow blocks, grabbing his axe of bone as he blinked away the dazzling light of the low hanging sun, his eyes adjusting to from the shadows of the room to the brilliant white light being reflected off the iceberg where his village stood in its centre. He wished he knew how long it had been here. He wished he had listened more closely to Bonecarver. He wished he had taken in the history of his people, even if that history was one of servitude and fear that each day would be the last, all to the whims of a great drake that slept beneath their home. That their doom came not from below them as Orcaheart’s many nightmares had seen, but from beyond the sea Orcaheart could never have known. They had come before, outsiders searching for Old White Death. He slaughtered those that trespassed in his lair, and as punishment for allowing intruders to set foot in his domain he took people at random from the village freezing them in a wall of ice and set it as a reminder to all of them, that failure meant death. Orcaheart had walked passed that wall hundreds of times, always he remembered the screams of families as their kin were slain and their bodies left in a grisly display forever. He did not remember the screams of the people that burned though. He was blasted off his feet as the attack struck, darkness taking him as his people were burned away around him. They could have left him for dead, instead they healed him, and left him in the village they had left ruined in their wake. Standing up, the tall tribal warrior saw Mend-Nets was gathering up the last of the children. Many did not want to leave, but they could not stay here, Old White Death would return and his wrath would mean the end of us all, though Mend-Nets explained it in kinder tones that Orcaheart could. The intruders had healed him of his sickness that had been slowly wasting him away for years, seeing the man who had once been struggling with every breath walking around giving orders was strange for Orcaheart. While everyone in the village knew each other well, they had not been close before the attack. Mend-Nets did what his name said, he repaired nets, and was quite good at it, but he had gotten sick and he fell away from the village, many had seen his exile as a death sentence, it would have been kinder to cast him off on the ice to return to the spirits of their ancestors. To die as a man, not as some dragon’s slave. “Go along little one, join your brothers and sisters. We will join you soon.” Mend-Nets comforted as they stared at the pile of blackened bones in the middle of the village, gathered together so that their spirits would watch over the site where they had lived and continue to protect them as they traveled the frozen sea. The child looks up at the towering figure of Orcaheart, their eyes were red with the pain from the tears that had frozen on their cheeks. Perhaps they sought words of comfort from him, some combination of sounds and phrases like Bonecarver could weave together to make the world seem magical. Or maybe they sought him to inspire them like Barking Seal, the chieftain of their village could give whenever they were out hunting the great whales of the ice. But he had no words to give. Orcaheart was a warrior, the greatest in his tribe, but not great enough to stop the intruders that came from beyond the sea, to plunder the riches of Oyaviggaton, even if his people were in their way. To his surprise the child wiped away their tears and gave him a look of grim determination, perhaps attempting to match his own, and set off towards the boats with those few that still lingered. “Well done,” Mend-Nets said, “They look to you for strength.” Orcaheart was about to open his mouth to say they should look to the spirits for strength as Bonecarver had taught them, or to the strength of their bonds like Barking Seal might have said, not to the strength of one warrior, but he did not get the chance. Mend-Nets was looking down at something his boot had knocked against. “What’s this?” Mend-Nets bent down, swept a thin layer of snow from a dark cloth sack. Picking it up produced a clinking sound, and as Mend-Nets opened the bag they saw the glint of yellow and silver metal, each marked with the faces of people, symbols and objects that Orcaheart had never seen, the meaningless markings on the sides raised up from the surface of the metal glaring back at him from the sack. Had the intruders left this here? Was this some sort of offering? Traders from the south carried bags filled with metals like these but Orcaheart knew not their value or purpose. His faced screwed up in rage as the confusion over why this had all happened threatened to overtake him once more. With an almost casual effort, Mend-Nets hurled the sack towards a chasm, the bag skimming across the ice until it came to a pause at the edge, the bag’s contents just cresting over the lip. “Come, we need to leave,” Mend-Nets said, gathering up a rolled bundle of furs and supplies, “The children will be waiting.” They walked together, Orcaheart’s face relaxing back to its grim expression, reaching the wall where some of their people had been encased in the ice years ago when the last intruders came, their features unchanged from the moment they died. Mend-Nets descended the stairs carved into the ice, calling out to some of the older children to help the smaller ones get into the boats. Some had never left the village. Orcaheart took one last look around at the village that had been his people’s home. No, not home. Prison. He would have to be the strength of his village now. And as he too stepped down onto the carved stairs and onto the last boat that set off from the ice sheet. The last of the Ice Hunters of Oyaviggaton, their salvation had left them scarred and burned, but had driven off the monster that had kept them hostage since before he could remember. They had a future now. And Orcaheart would protect that. He had to. As the last of the small boats disappeared from view of the iceberg lair of Old White Death, the bag of coins left by the intruders shifted as the wind picked up. It edged closer to the lip of the chasm, its bottom obscured by darkness and many jagged walls of ice. As the coins shifted, the bag rolled, spilling some of its contents down into the blackness, the lose of weight allowing the howling winds to give the bag one last push, the platinum and gold coins cascading down into the abyss below with hundreds of echoes, all drowned out by the swirling maelstrom of wind that began to cover the whole iceberg in a new layer of snow. Category:Blog posts